How to reduce infant mortality

byRob CullenonSeptember 15, 2011

The Incidental Economist’s Aaron Carroll has a great post on why infant mortality rates in the US are so high for certain ethnic groups. Carroll looks into data from the Centers for Disease Control and finds that most of the difference in infant mortality between whites and blacks is due to preterm related causes. He writes:

This would lead me to believe that if we want to have a major impact on infant mortality in the US, specifically in these high risk (and growing) populations, we should focus on preventing preterm labor and delivery. If anyone can think of a better way to do that than by making sure that pregnant women have easy and uninterrupted access to high quality prenatal care, I’d love to hear it.

Access to prenatal care is also a human rights issue for women– around the world, one woman dies every 90 seconds from complications due to pregnancy or childbirth. For more information and ways to take action, check out Amnesty International’s maternal health campaign.